NVIDIA's Tiny 90nm G71 and G73: GeForce 7900 and 7600 Debut
by Derek Wilson on March 9, 2006 10:00 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Final Words
Even though we didn't test as many games as we usually do, there is quite a bit of data to digest. On the high end, the 7900 GTX generally performs around the X1900 XT and X1900 XTX. This isn't a blow out victory for either NVIDIA or ATI as far as performance goes, and it looks like we have some very good competition here.
In general, SLI edges out CrossFire in most cases. Under F.E.A.R., Quake 4 and BF2 at high resolutions, SLI shows a larger performance increase than CrossFire. Splinter Cell does do a good job of showing the potential of Crossfire, but as of now we don't see as many games scaling as well with CrossFire as they do with SLI.
While the 7900 GT generally spent its time at the bottom of our high end tests, remember that it performs slightly better than a stock 7800 GTX. This puts it squarely at or better than the X1800 XL and X1800 XT. We didn't include these cards as ATI seems to be backing away from the X1800 lineup with the exception of the X1800 GTO that we were unable to obtain for this launch. As the X1800 GTO looks like a cut down X1800 XL, we can certainly expect the 7900 GT to outperform it as well.
The 7600 GT does quite a good job of splitting the performance difference between the 6800 GS and the 7800 GT. NVIDIA is hoping that we will concentrate on how well the 7600 GT does in comparison to the X1600 XT, but unless the price of the 7600 GT falls to about $150 really fast the comparison isn't really fair. The 6800 GS already performs better than the X1600 and can be found for about $170. It's clear the 7600 GT needs to be positioned against a faster offering from ATI such as their upcoming X1800 GTO. With the X1800 GTO poised to come in at between $250 and $300, we would expect it to compete more with the 7900 GT which will come in somewhere between $300 and $350. The next step up in ATI's lineup after the X1600 XT will be the X1800 GTO, so we need to take that into consideration when looking at the 7600 GT (even though it should be less expensive than the ATI part).
The bottom line here is that it all comes down to price. With the close competition at the high end, we still really don't recommend the X1900 XTX which generally comes in between $580 and $650. In order for the 7900 GTX to really look good compared to the X1900 XT, we will have to push below the $500 mark. NVIDIA has positioned the 7900 GTX as a $500 part, but we can already find X1900 XT cards for about $475; with the tight competition, we would really like to see NVIDIA take advantage of their cost saving die sizes and bring prices down.
The NVIDIA solutions use less power, generate less heat, and are cheaper to produce, but what matters in the end is the performance the end user gets for the price he or she pays. Yes, the 7900 GTX performs on par with the X1900 XT and XTX. With ATI's additional features, will NVIDIA's street prices be low enough to entice gamers? We'll have to wait and see.
Even though we didn't test as many games as we usually do, there is quite a bit of data to digest. On the high end, the 7900 GTX generally performs around the X1900 XT and X1900 XTX. This isn't a blow out victory for either NVIDIA or ATI as far as performance goes, and it looks like we have some very good competition here.
In general, SLI edges out CrossFire in most cases. Under F.E.A.R., Quake 4 and BF2 at high resolutions, SLI shows a larger performance increase than CrossFire. Splinter Cell does do a good job of showing the potential of Crossfire, but as of now we don't see as many games scaling as well with CrossFire as they do with SLI.
While the 7900 GT generally spent its time at the bottom of our high end tests, remember that it performs slightly better than a stock 7800 GTX. This puts it squarely at or better than the X1800 XL and X1800 XT. We didn't include these cards as ATI seems to be backing away from the X1800 lineup with the exception of the X1800 GTO that we were unable to obtain for this launch. As the X1800 GTO looks like a cut down X1800 XL, we can certainly expect the 7900 GT to outperform it as well.
The 7600 GT does quite a good job of splitting the performance difference between the 6800 GS and the 7800 GT. NVIDIA is hoping that we will concentrate on how well the 7600 GT does in comparison to the X1600 XT, but unless the price of the 7600 GT falls to about $150 really fast the comparison isn't really fair. The 6800 GS already performs better than the X1600 and can be found for about $170. It's clear the 7600 GT needs to be positioned against a faster offering from ATI such as their upcoming X1800 GTO. With the X1800 GTO poised to come in at between $250 and $300, we would expect it to compete more with the 7900 GT which will come in somewhere between $300 and $350. The next step up in ATI's lineup after the X1600 XT will be the X1800 GTO, so we need to take that into consideration when looking at the 7600 GT (even though it should be less expensive than the ATI part).
The bottom line here is that it all comes down to price. With the close competition at the high end, we still really don't recommend the X1900 XTX which generally comes in between $580 and $650. In order for the 7900 GTX to really look good compared to the X1900 XT, we will have to push below the $500 mark. NVIDIA has positioned the 7900 GTX as a $500 part, but we can already find X1900 XT cards for about $475; with the tight competition, we would really like to see NVIDIA take advantage of their cost saving die sizes and bring prices down.
The NVIDIA solutions use less power, generate less heat, and are cheaper to produce, but what matters in the end is the performance the end user gets for the price he or she pays. Yes, the 7900 GTX performs on par with the X1900 XT and XTX. With ATI's additional features, will NVIDIA's street prices be low enough to entice gamers? We'll have to wait and see.
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Z3RoC00L - Thursday, March 9, 2006 - link
Anandtech don't favor ATi over nVIDIA. Have you checked out the majority of reviews? The only site that's giving nVIDIA a decisive win is HardOCP. If you want fanboism and retardation (yes new word I invented) please feel free to visit http://www.HardOCP.com">http://www.HardOCP.com. But if you want solid benchmarks only a few places offer them. Beyond3D, Anandtech and firingsquad. You can also check Techreport & Hothardware. Want a list?- Anandtech (GeForce 7600 and 7900 series)
- Beyond 3D (GeForce 7600 series)
- Bjorn 3D (GeForce 7600 and 7900 series)
- ExtremeTech(GeForce 7600 and 7900 series)
- Firing Squad (GeForce 7900 series)
- Firing Squad (GeForce 7600 series)
- Guru 3D (GeForce 7600 and 7900 series)
- Hard OCP (GeForce 7900 series)
- Hardware Zone (ASUS GeForce 7900 GT)
- HEXUS (GeForce 7600 and 7900 series)
- Hot Hardware (GeForce 7600 and 7900 series)
- Legit Reviews (XFX GeForce 7900 GTX XXX Edition)
- NV News (eVHGA GeForce 7900 GT CO)
- PC Perspective (GeForce 7600 and 7900 series)
- PenStar Systems (eVGA GeForce 7600 CO)
- The Tech Report (GeForce 7600 and 7900 series)
- Tom's Hardware Guide (GeForce 7600 and 7900 series)
- Tweak Town (BFG GeForce 7900 GTX)
- Club IC (French) (GeForce 7900 GT)
- iXBT (Russian) (GeForce 7600 and 7900 series)
- Hardware.FR (GeForce 7900 series)
- Hardware.FR (GeForce 7600 series)
All in all the x1900XTX comes out the winner in the high end segment when HIGH END features are used (AA and AF) and when heavy Shaders are used as well. But it's not a clear victory. Results go both ways and much like the x800XT PE vs. 6800 Ultra (with roles reversed) there will never be a clear winner between these two cards.
I for one prefer the X1900XTX, I like the fact that it will last a tad longer and offer me better Shader performance, better performance under HDR, Adaptive AA, High Quality AF, HDR + AA, AVIVO and the AVIVO converter tool. But that's just my opinion.
Fenixgoon - Thursday, March 9, 2006 - link
You do realize that the x1900 XT and XTX beat the 7800 series, right? That's all Nvidia has had until now. I'm glad to see the 7900 take the lead (albeit the few frames it gains generally don't matter). What concerns me is the budget market. I'd like to see both ATI and Nvidia do some more work in producing better budget cards. My x800pro is still an awesome mid-range card that can hang with many of these new series cards, minus SM3(I bought it some months ago as a final AGP upgrade). In the end of course, stiff compeitition = better price/performance for usSpoonbender - Thursday, March 9, 2006 - link
Been living under a rock for the last 3 years? ATI's drivers are fine these days. I still prefer NVidia's drivers, but that's a matter of preference mainly. Quality-wise, there's only the slightest difference these days.And NVidia isn't all that compatible either. They've ditched support for everything up to (and including) Geforce 2 in their newer drivers. But really, who cares? I doubt you'd get much more performance out of a GF2 by using newer drivers.
As for the bias, I'm surprised NVidia does so well in this test. I was expecting them to take a beating performance-wise.
But geez, what you're saying is really "I don't know anything about ATI, but the fact that AT includes their cards in benchmarks means they must be evil liars..."
Spinne - Thursday, March 9, 2006 - link
If you've never had experience with an ATI GPU, how qualified are you to judge their software? I've used cards made by both companies and I would not bad mouth ATI's drivers down anymore. Ever since the Catalyst series came out, their drivers have been pretty decent. The 'Driver Gap' is highly overrated and untrue to the best of my experience, atleast under Windows. Under Linux, my apartment mate tells me ATI's drivers suck, but then again, he's never used them, but I'd give some weight to his opinion. In any case, there's no point in buying a high end card like this for a Linux box.rgsaunders - Thursday, March 9, 2006 - link
First of all, let me say that Anandtech is usually the first place I visit when looking for information on new hardware, however, I find that your video card reviews seem to have fallen prey to the same pattern as other review sites. Although its nice to know how these cards perform for gaming, the vast majority of users do more than game with their machines. It would be very beneficial to those of us looking for a new video card to see results of comparative video quality for text use and photo editing as well as the normal gaming tests. In the past, I have returned video cards because of their extremely poor text quality, even though they were good for gaming. The gaming community is a vocal minority online, however, the vast majority of users spend a lot of time using their machines for textual processing or photo editing, etc and a small portion of their time gaming.Please include the requested tests in upcoming video card reviews so as to provide a balanced, professional review of these products and stand out from all the other review sites that seem to concentrate primarily on gaming.
Spinne - Thursday, March 9, 2006 - link
Can you specify what cards you've had to return due to poor texture quality? As far as I know, no cards have had problems with 2D in a very very long time. In any case, you'd have to be insane and very rich to splurge money on a G71 or R580 class card for Photoshop or @D desktop performance. It's like buying a '70 Dodge Challenger for driving to work in. I do however feel that AT needs to talk about image quality in 3D some. With all the different modes of AF and AA out there, and the cores themselves performing so well, IQ becomes a large factor in the decesion making process.rgsaunders - Thursday, March 9, 2006 - link
In the past I have had to return Asus and Abit Geforce based cards due to their dubious text\2D quality. There are differences between the various cards, ATI and nVidia, dependant upon the actual manufacturer, in their filter designs. This has a noticeable affect at times on the quality of the text. I agree that IQ in 3D is important, however I do think that text and 2D IQ are also important. The fact that a G71 or R580 class card may be overkill if all you were doing with your computer is Photoshop or MSOffice, however for some of us, the computer is a multipurpose device, used for the full gamut of applications, including occassional gaming. In the main, I usually stay a step behind the bleeding edge of video performance, as do many others. Todays bleeding edge is tomorrows main stream card and unless you review everything the first time, there is no information wrt text and 2D IQ.Zoomer - Monday, March 13, 2006 - link
These are most likely reference cards, and reference cards from nvidia have in the past proven to output a much better signal that what will be produced later on, esp. when the price cutting starts.Zoomer - Monday, March 13, 2006 - link
One more thing.Derek, why don't you guys take the time required to produce a nice review? Is it really necessary to get that article up and running on the day of the launch? If you got the cards late, bash the company for it. And take all the time you need to do a proper review like these AT have done in the past.
Reviews with just benchmarks and pharaphrased press release info is REALLY boring and is a turn off. For example, I couldn't bear to look at the graphs as they weren't relevant. I skipped right to the End.
Whatever happened to overclocking investigations? Testing for core/mem bottlenecks by tweaking the frequency? Such infomation is USEFUL as it means all these with the same care out there DOES NOT have to repeat it for themselves. Recall AT's TNT/GF2 era articles. If my memory is correct, there were pages of such investigation, and a final recommendation was made to clock up the mem clock to the limit, and then clock up the core.
Image quality comparisons like these done on for the Radeon 32 DDR, R200, etc are almost absent.
Quality of components used? Granted, this is moot for engineering sample cards, but an investigation of the cooling solution would be good. Reliability and noise of the cooling solution should be included. Does these ultra fine fins dust traps? That small high RPM screamer a possible candidate for early failure?
Performance is only one small part of the whole picture. Everyone and their dog publishes graphs. However, only a select few go beyond that, and even fewer are from these that have the trust of many.
Questar - Thursday, March 9, 2006 - link
According to Hardocp, the 7900 has horrible texture shimmering issues.